Affinity Group · 10 Sessions · 60 minutes weekly

A room held by people who already know the shape of the day

Ten weeks for neurodivergent adults, allies, and people still figuring out the word for what they are. Less a curriculum than a slow assembly of language and rest. We try to take a less pathologizing view. Less of a mindset that aspects of our experience need to be fixed or changed, more of one focused on understanding and adapting to life based on who we are. Our identities, cultures, ways of being, especially the ones that diverge from what people assume the norms are.

The arc

Ten sessions

Each session has its own page. The arc moves from establishing the room, through shared vocabulary and the politics of masking, into the harder material of burnout and rest, and out to the question of what life we are actually building.

  1. Session 1

    The Room We Build

    Establish the container, language preferences, and the affinity-group frame distinct from remediation.

    Beginning
  2. Session 2

    The Paradigm We Inherited

    Distinguish the deficit paradigm from the neurodiversity paradigm and meet Milton's double empathy as the field's pivot.

    Beginning
  3. Session 3

    Monotropism: Attention as Architecture

    Reframe attention, special interests, sensory overload, and transition difficulty as predictable consequences of one cognitive architecture.

    Middle - Conceptual scaffold
  4. Session 4

    Masking and the Cost of Translation

    Define masking, distinguish authored from conscripted masking, and receive the CAT-Q score as material.

    Middle - Conceptual scaffold
  5. Session 5

    Burnout: When the Mask Cracks

    Define autistic burnout as distinct from depression and occupational burnout through three core features.

    Middle - Conceptual scaffold
  6. Session 6

    Rest Is Resistance

    Hold Hersey's Black liberation theology of rest alongside Chapman's materialist account of why ND burnout is structural.

    Middle - Liberation pedagogy core
  7. Session 7

    The Body Is Not an Apology

    Address body sovereignty, sensory access, interoception, and the body as the place where masking is felt.

    Middle - Liberation + somatic
  8. Session 8

    Unmasking as Identity Work

    Frame unmasking as a relational gradient rather than a self-help arc, and receive the ASIS Positive Difference and Changeability data.

    Middle/End - Depth integration
  9. Session 9

    Who Loves Us, How We Love

    Allies and curious participants are first-class protagonists this week, applying double empathy to the relationships at home.

    End - Allies & relational integration
  10. Session 10

    The Life We Are Building

    Re-administer CAT-Q and ASIS, integrate the arc, identify next-step support, and close with residue rather than closure.

    End

Evidence base

Whose work this room is built on

The frame draws on neurodiversity-paradigm scholarship, autistic and ADHD self-advocacy writing, and the materialist and theological critiques that keep the paradigm honest about disability, race, and labor.

  • Judy Singer coined "neurodiversity" as a sociopolitical paradigm
  • Robert Chapman materialist critique of the neurodiversity-as-individual-trait reading
  • Devon Price unmasking, autistic adulthood, the cost of compulsory normality
  • Sonya Renee Taylor radical body sovereignty as the ground for any liberation
  • Tricia Hersey rest as resistance, grounded in Black liberation theology and womanist tradition
  • Damian Milton double empathy problem: communication breakdown runs both directions
  • Murray, Lesser, Lawson monotropism, attention as deeply pooled rather than distributed
  • Dora Raymaker autistic burnout as a distinct clinical phenomenon
  • Kana Hull autism, identity, and the politics of self-knowledge
  • Lucy Crompton autistic peer rapport, the relief of the same-neurotype room
  • Monique Botha minority stress, masking, and stigma in autistic adults

Before the first session

Optional intake

Some people want a structured way to think about their own profile before walking into the room. Others know already and would rather not perform the question for an instrument. Both routes are fine.

If you want a starting point, the assessments page hosts the CAT-Q (camouflaging behaviors), RAADS-R (autistic traits across the lifespan), and the AQ-10 (a brief screen). They are screening tools, not diagnoses, and the group does not require any of them.

See the neurodivergence intake assessments →

Next cohort

Cohorts run quarterly, capped small enough that everyone gets a turn without performing for the room.

Email about the next cohort Read the full program page →